“Molecular biology has no history for the young scientist,” one of the old guard declared not long ago. - Jonathan Weiner

Why are there so many kinds of animals? Adaptive radiations like Darwin’s finches are the essence of the answer.

Evolution discloses a meaning in death, although the meaning is like some of the berries that Darwin tasted in the Galapagos, “acid & Austere.” There is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. Even Drought bears fruit. Even death is a seed.

All three spoke in the kind of down-home, common-as-flies style that is the lingua franca of great scientists, conveying a contempt for pretension, a contempt for cant, a delight in common sense, combined with uncommon curiosity about what is really there.